A Doctor's War: Autobiography

by Aidan Mac Carthy (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1985

  $5.41

• Used

  Paperback
  2005

  $3.40

  2005 is a key year for anniversaries of events that shaped Europe and Ireland. The Collins Press joins the commemorations with the reissue of this epic war memoir, introduced by the late Pete McCarthy. While researching McCarthy's Bar Pete entered MacCarthy's Bar in Castletownbere, west Cork. The owner, Adrienne MacCarthy, gave him a copy of A Doctor's War, her father's wartime memoir. The next night Pete found it 'unputdownable' and told her it was eminently worthy of republication. As an RAF medical officer, Aidan had served in France, survived Dunkirk, and was plunged into adventures in the Japanese-American arena comparable with those of famous war heroes. Interned by the Japanese in Java, Dr MacCarthy helped his fellow prisoners with incredible ingenuity in appalling conditions. In 1944, en route to the Japanese mainland, his ship was torpedoed but a Japanese whaling boat picked him up and he was re-interned on the mainland. In Nagasaki his life was literally saved by the dropping of the atomic bomb and he was an eyewitness to the horror and devastation it caused. Finally, he cruised home on board the Queen Mary.